4 Summary This report presents the investigations, developments and the result of the project 3D spatial data infrastructure, funded by Next Generation Infrastructures, Maasvlakte 2 ISBN: ISSN: Section GIS technology OTB Research for the Built Environment TU Delft Julianalaan 134, 2628 BL Delft, the Netherlands Tel.: +31 (0) ; Fax +31 (0) Websites: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or incorporated into any information retrieval system without written permission from the publisher. The Section GIS technology accepts no liability for possible damage resulting from the findings of this research or the implementation of recommendations. This publication is the result of the research programme Sustainable Urban Areas, carried out by Delft University of Technology

7 1 Introduction The continuous development and maintenance of the infrastructure, facilities, logistics and other assets of the Port of Rotterdam requires the management of a broad spectrum of heterogeneous information (HbR, 2010). A large number of public and private stakeholders that include companies, environmental authorities, e.g. DCMR Milieudienst Rijnmond, municipalities, various institutions and citizens are constantly involved in the exchange of critical information. Much of this information concerns interdepended infrastructural artefacts and features that are embedded in a dynamic environment which is in a constant state of transformation. These artefacts are spatially distributed above ground (topography, cadastral parcels, buildings, streets, parking areas), underground (cables and pipes, geological and geotechnical data, tunnels), in the air (sensors for measurement of air quality, radar coverage, camera coverage) as well as in the water. Three general groups of problems can be summarised (Botter, 2012, Zlatanova and Beetz, 2012) : Lack of dimensionality and common semantics: At present, a substantial part of the data sets that are communicated in the management and design processes of the Port consist of traditional 2D line drawings. As often mentioned in the literature (Emgård and Zlatanova, 2008, Tegtmeier et al 2014, Zlatanova et al 2010) this requires frequent re-modelling and even re-measuring which is resource-consuming. In addition, the meaning transported by these drawing is often weakly structured only by means of layers, colours or pen styles which require human interpretation and make the automation of data integration much harder as compared to object-oriented and semantically rich representations. Rich sematic models as CityGML and IFC are hardly used, due to various integration problems (Beetz et al 2009, 2010, Hidjazi et al 2009, 2010). Data complexity: Data sets available for design and maintenance process are increasingly complex, large and diverse. This complexity concerns several aspects. Size: the semi-automated gathering of high resolution measurement data, such as sensor data and voxel sets of underground information provided by RWS, TNO and City of Rotterdam (GWR), results in large data sets which are challenging to process. Semantic diversity: for data based on existing semantically rich data models (i.e. CityGML LOD2 model of City of Rotterdam and IMxxx models of Geonovum) problems arise from matching and mapping different semantic concepts for an integration of heterogeneous data into a single model. Granularity & accuracy: with varying geometric and topological detail of available data sets (such as TOP10NL, GBMN, IMGeo2), abstraction, simplification and the provision of multiple levels of detail are necessary to facilitate the decision making process (Arroyo Ohori et al 2012). Data exchange and interoperability: The majority of data transferred between stakeholders and Port of Rotterdam is encoded in proprietary files (like shape, dwg, dgn) that require the use of a large range of specialized applications and tools with a high total cost of ownership/operation. The extraction of relevant aspects from disconnected source documents and databases, and their transformation into target formats by individual operators is inefficient and hard to automate and therefore labour and time consuming. Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB 1

8 This project investigated 3D spatial infrastructure for information management, which can support current and future activities of Port of Rotterdam especially with respect to the extension of the port with the new land of Maasvlakte2. There are two major aspects in this research: what kind of 3D SII is suitable for Port of Rotterdam and how to evaluate/estimate the efficiency? The following sub-questions are related to the 3D SII: - Which objects (features) are relevant? (semantics, geometry, topology, appearance, LOD); - What kind of data structure is most appropriate to maintain the objects, their properties and relationships; - What kind of mapping technology between different models should be utilised: syntax and structure vs. semantics (ontology); - Which standard for exchange of information should be used: GML, CityGML, BIM (IFC), IMxxx; - Which system architecture should be utilised: NORA, OGC web services, RESTful vs. SOAP; - What visualisation approaches should be followed: thin clients vs. front-end application, mobile vs. desktop environment. The report is organised as follows: The next section 2 described the current status and provides more details on the two cases studies. Section 3 proposes a system architecture. Section 4 discusses the options for integrated management of GIS data. Section 5 elaborates on the BIM model. Section 6 discusses the options for integrated management of GIS and BIM data. Section 7 presents 3D analyses and visualisation examples for utilisation of the 3D model. 2 Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB

9 2 Current State: Use Cases Two use cases have been identified as study scenarios for which the new methods and technologies were investigated: underground pipe lines and quays. Both scenarios have been identified as critical issues in internal studies of the Port of Rotterdam and other stakeholders such as the City of Rotterdam. 2.1 Underground pipe and cables The current management of pipes and cables is 2D. The records (geometry and register) are obtained from the Municipality of Rotterdam in the form of 2D drawings (although the existence of 3D records) that are copied in bulk on a regular, yet informal basis. The department MI and Gemeentewerken (Stadsbeheer) ensure the management of the piping network such as improving the network, making extensions or modifications. The port contains a large number of CAD drawings. When received at the Port of Rotterdam the information is organised in a 2D data model (Oracle Spatial), which resembles the structure if the obtained shape files. The data model is used to support various task in design of new facilities and extensions and new pipes and lines. The information can be visualised in the internal 2D viewer RIV (Figure 1) or extracted in excel sheets and analysed (Figure 2). The lack of depth information as well as a proper 3D visualisation (for inspection and control) make many of the analysis time consuming and inaccurate. The current data model is relatively simple: does not maintain topology, different networks can be distinguished only by attributes, clear semantics about components does not exist, no links are maintained to above ground objects or data (streets or houses or AHN). Figure 1: Visualisation in RIV Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB 3

11 which contains definitions about the names, geometry (containing rules for validity), topology (relationships between the objects) and appearance of the objects. 3D spatial information has become widely used in daily life. Large companies, small businesses as well as private persons have access to 3D spatial information in various scales and resolutions and the need for integrated modelling (above, below and on the surface) is growing. Much of this information however is not well-structured. At the moment we are facing an important development; from 3D to valid and semantically rich 3D data (Arroyo Ohori et al 2012, Emgård and Zlatanova 2008, Lappiére and Côté 2008, Penninga 2008, Scarponcini et al 2008, Döner et al 2010, Stoter et al 2010). In 2007, the majority of the large companies dealing with spatial information have announced 3D functionality within database technology (Oracle Spatial 2007), Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) software (Bentley Inc, Autodesk,), GIS Software (ESRI) and spatial data processing (SAFE). CityGML was accepted as OGC 3D standard (Gröger et al 2007), Building Information Models (BIM) are becoming more mature and the conversion between CityGML and BIM is a hot topic of investigations (Hijazi et al 2009, Hijazi et al 2010, Isikdag and Zlatanova 2009). Geonovum is actively considering extensions of some Dutch Information Models (IM) toward 3D (Stoter et al 2010). A prominent example of these extensions is 3D IMGeo. All these developments suggest that 3D information management is technically possible, but should be well-tuned for the purposes and tasks of an organisation. One of the major bottlenecks in the process of upgrading to 3D is the data model. The model should be able to provide mechanisms for integrating all data (above and below the ground as well as BIM data) in one application. This is a very challenging task as the data (created for the purpose of the maintaining company) might be with a very specific content (e.g. risicoconturen) or in contrary intended for a very broad range of clients (GBK vlakken). As result the objects might have either very detailed or insufficient descriptions. Furthermore depending on the application, various geometric representations might be used. The current data sets are available as B-reps (most GIS data, many BIM data structures), CSG, meshes (some of the CAD and BIM data) and voxels (underground data). There are several approaches to solving of data heterogeneity: - Create a new (company specific) model. All incoming data then will be transformed to the new 3D model - Keep the data in their original descriptions but maintain the needed references between the objects - Extend existing data models with additional, company-specific structures to accommodate specific information requirements. This approach was leading in this project because of two reasons. Firstly, the discussions with specialists have revealed that the Port of Rotterdam uses data sets from many different institutions and is responsible for the maintenance of very few data sets. Secondly, the study on spatial data needed for the Port of Rotterdam has clarified that most of the features of interest are described in international and national data standards. In this project, three variants of this approach have been investigated for their feasibility for the specific case of Port of Rotterdam. Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB 5

12 3 System Architecture In order to facilitate interoperability between the different stakeholders identified in the requirement analysis of both case studies pipes and quays a number of different approaches have been identified. These are illustrated in this section of the report. The integrated model is intended to be used in a Service-Oriented Architecture that allows just-in-time extraction and integration of distributed data sources through web services. Such an approach ensures - Data integrity through separation of concerns: The individual data sources are maintained by small expert teams. If individual nodes temporarily fail, the overall structure will continue to work. - Up-to-datedness, i.e. always the last version of the data as available to the data manager. - Efficient management, i.e. distributed and shared responsibilities instead of centralized management. - Clear agreements on ownership and data management. Figure 4:Concept for access and exchange of data Two approaches have been investigated in the context of this project: - Central database for objects that are managed by Port of Rotterdam, using state-of-the art commercial off the shelf solutions such as Oracle GIS databases. - Web services for data that are the responsibility of other organisations, such as the City of Rotterdam or engineering offices working on particular tasks such as quay walls. This approach relies on technologies as the OGC family of geospatial information access standards through e.g. Web Feature Services (WFS) and developments in (spatial) queries of partial Building Information Models (BIM) including concepts such as Model View Definitions (MVD). 6 Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB

13 Figure 5: Conceptual view of the data model Examples: Quay wall structures in databases exposed with web services and enriched with distributed vocabularies: For the use case of the new constructions of among others quay wall structures in the Amazonehaven area of the Port of Rotterdam, a number of different experiments and test have been conducted. These involved - The creation of novel explicit schema extensions of the predominant BIM interoperability format Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) for quay walls - The integration of GIS and simplified BIM data at lower levels of details into common models exposed for online viewing in a dashboard application prototype (Demonstrator 1) - The creation of novel semantic enrichment facilities for the backwardcompatible enrichment of legacy IFC BIM models with RDF vocabularies. This has led to the implementation of a proof-of-concept prototype (Demonstrator 2) - A demonstration of shared databases with the City of Rotterdam that allow the facilitation and integration of up-to-date data across institution boundaries. Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB 7

14 4 3D Integrated Management of GIS Data In the project, methodological concepts and developments for object-oriented 3D spatial models were investigated, extended and tailored to the purposes of large infrastructures such as the Port of Rotterdam. The process followed two phases: - A new integrated 3D model for internal use. This approach allows a welltailored model to be defined that can closely reflect the needs of the Port. However such approach requires a large number of modifications of data sets that are not maintained by Port of Rotterdam. - A 3D model based on national and international standards. Standards have been considered since the start of the project, but a 3D model based entirely on international and national standards was adopted only in the second phase of the project. Two major developments had impact on this decision: o Geonovum as intention to establish relations between all concepts o Last developments with BuildingSMART and OGC for harmonisation of concepts. In this project we have concentrated on the second option for two major reasons: - Limited responsibility for data sets. Many of the data sets are not maintained by the Port but obtained from various institutions and the Rotterdam municipality. This implies that many of the data sets are already supplied according to national or international standards - Re-use of concepts. The re-use of concepts and definitions will save time to process data as less conversions will be needed and will reduce errors and information loss while converting from one format to another. - Awareness of national and international standards. The awareness of available standards will definitely increase the contribution of the Port to the standardisation process. The Port of Rotterdam is excellent cross domain case study where integration of types of data above and below ground, under water design BIM and existing GIS data, 2D and 3D have to be brought together in one environment not only for visualisation but also for analysis. 4.1 A model based on international standards The set of features (assets), which have to be included in the model considering their semantics, geometry, topology, appearance, granularity or levels of detail (LOD). Moving to 3D, it should be also evaluated how to link the concepts of BIM (e.g. IFC) and GIS (e.g. CityGML). The generic model will give the conceptual view on the information to be managed by the Port. Some sections of it will be implemented as data structure, but many sections will be used only as a reference model to obtain data from clients and partners. 8 Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB

15 Figure 6: An example of concepts taken from IMxxx, which are relevant for the data sets needed for Port of Rotterdam The data structure, which would be most appropriate to maintain the features, which are maintained by the Port of Rotterdam. At present, many data sets are still maintained by individual departments, although large parts of the information are managed centrally in database management system (DBMS). A central management is clearly a choice that will ensure consistency and re-use of information, but will require a data model that can serve the needs of all departments. The generic 3D model should incorporate data from GIS (existing) and BIM (design) domain (Figure 4 and Figure 5). While developing the GIS branch of the model, the following principles are taken into consideration: - Features will be defined only once, but all the properties needed for the work of the Port will be maintained. This implies that all the features will be intelligent objects, having strict definitions and consistently structured properties and relationships. - Features, which can be identified in existing standards (GIS and BIM) will be re-used. A special attention will be given to the Dutch Information Doman Models. Among those models the topographic large-scale model (IMGeo) and the Information model for Cables and Pipes (IMKL) are most interesting. Relevant features from other models will be re-used as well (Figure 6). Extensions of existing concepts can be defined following the approaches applied in developing 3D IMGeo and linking it to CityGML (e.g. van de Brink et al 2013 and Stoter et al 2010) - New features will be defined only when similar notations cannot be identified in existing models. Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB 9

16 - International standards, discussions and tendencies related to 3D information management will be closely followed and taken into consideration. Special attention will be given to developments within OGC and Web3D. 4.2 Network ADE of CityGML A critical question in this project was the maintenance of utility networks. Two semantically rich models were studied: the national IMKL and the Network ADE of CityGML (Gröger et al 2008). Both models are intended for exchange of information and does have detailed set of attributes. The semantics of IMKL is more elaborated than Networks ADE, however Network ADE maintains topology. For the scope of this study was of interest what the effort will be to create a topologically correct model from the current pure geometry organization. Therefore the pipes and cables of the of the test area were imported in the topologic model of Network ADE of CityGML (Figure 7). The network was converted to a topological model using the overlay tools of ArcGIS. Figure 7: Visualisation of network in CityGML viewer 10 Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB

17 Figure 8: Performing spatial analysis within ArcGIS The experiments have shown that topology is possible to build at not very high cost but tools are needed for automation of the process. Using Network ADE clearly has advantages: - Topology, which ensures validity and correctness of the networks. - The model can be readily integrated in CityGML, which allows various complex analysis to be performed (Figure 8) Indeed creating a topologically correct model require additional processing of data, which might be further investigated. Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB 11

18 5 BIM-Quay Models For the quay wall use case two different approaches have been carried out and evaluated in the context of the 3DSDI project. They consist of a traditional schemaextension approach combined with investigations of necessary Model View Definitions (MVDs) that go beyond the current state of the art (see 5.1) and a novel approach for harnessing the potential of the Semantic Web initiative to enrich legacy BIM models provided in the IFC format (see 5.2). 5.1 Novel development of a quay wall schema as an extension to the IFC model In this project the novel IfcQuay model is developed. IfcQuay is intended to be an addition to the established and ISO certified IFC model and describes different types of Quay Walls and its components. Figure 9 Excerpts of EXPRESS-G diagrams of the suggested IfcQuay super structures There are two main parts that are explained here: 1. Description of the various quay wall types and their representations and hierarchies in IFC. These mainly include different kinds of super structures and their suggested integration into the overall IFC model. These are illustrated in Figure 9 and Figure Description of the various quay wall parts and the way they are represented as geometry. These are addressing mainly parametric walls and other construction types that are frequently met in quay wall constructions and other civil engineering works, yet no specialized classes have been introduced into the IFC model yet. Beyond that, a number of specific objects such as bollards, fenders and crane track have been included in the model schema. Some graphical examples are provided in Figure Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB

19 Figure 10 Schematic overview of some of the quay wall superstructures suggested in the IfcQuay extension Figure 11 Examples of frequently used engineering structures that have been explicitly modeled in the IfcQuay extension Both the superstructures and the individual components have been modelled based on best practices in similar efforts done for e.g. bridges. The report includes the full suggested model extension as an ISO part 11 EXPRESS schema and will be suggested to the international OpenInfra initiative and the buildingsmart standardization organization. In order for the suggested model extension to be implemented into civil engineering software including BIM/CAD modellers or integrated into information frameworks and dashboard application systems such as the ones suggested in the 3DSDI Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB 13

20 framework, it is desirable to limit the scope of the overall model consisting of the base IFC model and the IfcQuay extension. In order to address this re-occurring need to limit the model complexity and implementation effort and in order to allow the fine-grained specification of information requirements, the buildingsmart initiative has standardized the concept of Model View Definitions (MVD) (Zhang et al 2013). This mechanism allows the selection and constraining of model constructs from the overall model (currently more than 700 classes and several thousand attributes) using filter mechanisms. Simply put, they can be seen as some sort of shopping cart that allow the collection of specific information structures that have to be supported by a software tool implementation in order to allow specific information exchanges scenarios. At present, the assembly of such MVD is very labour intensive and complex which leads to a slower progress of interoperability agreements in the sector than is desirable. In order to address this, the need to create, maintain and verify such MVDs has been identified by various stakeholders across different domains in civil engineering time and again (Figure 12). In the context of the 3DSDI project a state-of-the-art literature review has been carried out that provides an overview of the various approaches currently existing and discusses their advantages and limitations. Based on these insights, experiments have been carried out using the IfcQuay model as an example to investigate novel ways for the assembly of such structures. BIM Validation Figure 12 schematic overview for the generation of Model View Definitions (MVD) of IFC models which have been partially applied to the case of the IfcQuay extenstion proposed by the 3DSDI project 5.2 Novel development of semantic enrichment strategies based on legacy IFC models The implementation effort to support custom model extensions as described above which are only used by a small community is considerably high. Moreover, it has to be repeated for each new domain model or internal organization information flow. 14 Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB

21 In a second phase of the quay wall use case work package of the 3DSDI project, a meta modeling approach has been taken. It not only covers the generic, reusable quay wall model that could also be used outside of the HbR context, but also demonstrates how such models can be extended in a dynamic, yet semantically rigid way. It enables covering in-house information aspects that can be used across the boundaries of individual departments within HbR and typical collaboration external parties such as engineering offices or the municipality of the city of Rotterdam. The key strategic choice in this approach is the use of Linked Data, an aspect of the Semantic Web initiative. In particular, instead of creating the model as an EXPRESS schema extension to the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) model which then needs to be implemented in each individual software tool, the new information semantics are captured in a machine readable form as OWL/RDF(s)/RDF vocabularies. Such vocabularies can have a wide range of expressivity (ranging from simple data dictionaries to full blown axiomatic systems described in a description logic language), can be used for automatic inferences, consistency checking and can be distributed across network structures. A principal schematic overview of such sematic enrichment is provided in Figure 13. Figure 13 schematic overview of the suggested principles to enrich legacy IFC models with semantically rich information captured in distributed, decentralized and easily extendible models captured in the Resource Description Framework (RDF) For the particular case of the quay wall, a demonstration scenario is being developed that uses information structures from three distinct repositories on different levels of generality: 1. Internationally recognized and widely accepted geometric and semantic modelling standards. As the general vendor-independent carrier of geometric information the Industry Foundation Classes (ISO 16739:2013) model is being used. Where its semantics do not cover information needs by the in-built entities and attributes on a schematic level or the external standardized property sets, internationally recognized concept repositories such as the ISO based buildingsmart Data Dictionary (bsdd) is being used as an extension mechanism. Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Department OTB 15

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